Tài liệu Practical ethics: a collection of addresses and essays docx

Henry Sidgwick, Prstical Ethics, ctical Ethics, the last book that Henry Sidgwick published before his P death in 1900, contains the distillation of a lifetime of reflection on ethics

Published in conjunction with the

Association for Practical and Professional Ethies

Series Editor Alan P Wertheimer, University of Vermont

iitorial Board

Sissela Bok, Harvard University

Daniel Callahan, The Hastings C

Deni Elliott, University of Montana

Robert Fullenwider, University of Maryland Amy Gutmann, Princeton University

Stephien E Kalish, University of Nebraska—Lincoln

‘Thomas H Murray, Case Western Reserve University Michael Pritchard, Western Michigan University

Henry Shu

David H Smith, Indiana University Cornell University

Dennis F Thompson, Harvard University

Vivian Weil, Illinois Institute of Technology

Brian Schrag, Executive Secretary of the Association

for Practical and Professional Ethics

A Collection of Addresses and Essays

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Sissela Bok

[We should] bring into a more clear and consistent form the

broad and general agreement as to the particulars of morality

which we find among moral persons, making explicit the

general conceptions of the good and evil in human life, of the

normal relation of a man to his fellows, which this agreement

implies We should do this not vaguely, bue aiming cautiously

at as much precision as the subject admits, not avoiding difi-

culties, but facing them, so as to get beyond the platitudes of

copyright morality to results which may be really of use in

the solution of practical questions; and yet not endeavour

ing to penetrate to ultimate principles, on which—as I have

said —we can hardly hope to come to rational agreement in

the present state of philosophical though

Henry Sidgwick, Prstical Ethics,

ctical Ethics, the last book that Henry Sidgwick published before his

P death in 1900, contains the distillation of a lifetime of reflection on ethics and on what it would take for ethical debate to be “really of use in the solution of practical questions.”Phis work deserves to count as a clas- sic in the field of practical and professional ethics, bringing uncommon succinctness, wit, and cogency to many of the issues of ethics in private and in public life still debated a century later In addition, its pages echo with Sidgwick’ reflections on the philosophers he found most challeng- ing Among them are Socrates, Aristotle, Kant, Butler, Bentham, and Mill, sometimes mentioned by name, more often not Like these thinkers, Sidg-

wick had, throughout his career, refused to isolate the study of ethics from that of politics, religion, economics, and the arts Hee had explored the dis tinctions and linkages and mutual influences among these different fields

in earlier works, such as his essays on literature and The Elements of Poli- ties and Political Economy.’

Issued in 1898 asa collection of lectures given between 1888 and 1897, Practical Ethics allows a fuller perspective on these works It also provides

an indispensable complement to Sidgwick’s major treatise on moral theory, The Methods of Ethics, first published when he was thirty-six years old and revised for successive editions throughout his life Sidgwick uses the same Aristotelian phrase to delimit the territory that each of these two books covers In the preface to the first edition of The Methods of Eis,

he announces that

‘though my treatment of the subject is, in a sense, more practical than that

‘of many moralis, since tam occupied from first to lst in considering how

‘conclusions are to be rationally seached in the familiar matter of our com- mon daily life and actual practice; still, my immediate object—to invert Aristotle's phrase—is not Practice but Knowledge, T have desired to concentrate the reader’ attention, from first to last,not on the practical re- sults to which our methods lead, but on the methods themselves

‘Twenty-four years later, in Practical Ethics, Sidgwick reverses that focus, He declares that the central aim of discussions under that heading should be

“in the Aristotelian sense, not knowledge but action” (p 5) Bue although his focus in the first book is on knowledge and method, and, in the sec~ ond, on action, both books inevitably concern their interaction To a proach Sidgwick’s thinking through either of the two books alone gives but a partial understanding of its scope and of the sense of drama, some~ times despair, with which he explored the prospects for relating theory and practice

In his own life, as in his writings, Sidgwick took for granted that moral reflection and practical moral choice ought to interact To be practical, ethics had to bring both greater understanding of, and greater capacity for, what he termed “right living.” Sidgwick’s letters and journals convey the seriousness with which he took moral choice in his personal life, as

well as the sime and energy that he devoted to efforts co bring about in-

stitutional, social, and political reform, He engaged in many forms of so- ial and philanthropic work and took lively part in the great debates of his time about the distribution of resources among social classes, about the duties of doctors, lawyers, public officials, and clergy, and about Britain’ relations with Ireland, its colonial ventures in Africa, and its military policies

Asa fellow atTrinity College in Cambridge and later as Knightsbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy there, Sidgwick also devoted himself to lib- eralizing the academic curriculum and to other reforms Influenced by John Stuart Mills The Subjecion of Women, he labored long and srenu- ously, against much opposition, for opening university studies to women and, once victorious, for granting them degrees Joining with the econo- mist Alfred Marshall and other Cambridge liberals, including his wife— the educator, lecturer, and author Eleanor Sidgwick—he struggled to es- tablish what became Newnham College at Cambridge, of which Eleanor Sidgwick was appointed the Principal in 1892.! In 1882, the two also helped found the Society for Psychical Research, of which Henry was the

first president and Eleanor the eighth

Given its significance in relation to Sidgwick’ life and writings as well

as for the field of practical and professional ethics, it is the more striking that Practical Ethics is so rarely mentioned One looks in vain for references

to it in course syllabi, bibliographies, case books, textbooks and other n

One of the reasons for its disappearance from public view may be that

Ít was barely mentioned in the 633-page Henry Sidewick, A Memoir, pub- lished after Sidgwick's death by his brother Arthur and his wife Eleanor, replete though this volume is with excerpts from Sidgwick’s letters and diaries,’ This omission may be due to the greater importance that Eleanor Sidgwick attached to their joint endeavors in the activities of the Society for Psychical Research, covered in the Memoir in assiduous detail It was perhaps natural chat Eleanor Sidgwick should stress this part of their joint work in a book about her late husband’ life and work begun so shortly after his death, But for Henry Sidgwick as for her, the efforts to achieve clarity about psychical research also bad a strong empirical component, itself connected with the possibility of practical ethics If they could achieve contact with the dead, that would provide empirical confirmation

of some form of afterlife In turn, such evidence would lend more cre- dence to claims about the possibility of a divine ordering of the universe that might provide firm foundations for human conduct, and for recon- ciling the moral conflict that Sidgwick saw between duty and self-inter- est Without at least the possibility of such foundations, Sidgwick found it hard to counter the sense of inevitable failure to which he points in the concluding paragraph of the first edition of ‘The Methods of Ethics:

[Tyhe whole system of oue belie as to the intrinsic reasonableness of con- dace mus fall, without hypothesis unverifiable by experience reconciling the Individual with the Universal Reason, without a belief in some form

‘or other, that the moral onder which we see imperfectly realized in this ac~ tual word, is yet actually perfect IF we reject this belief, we may perhaps sill find inthe non-moral universe an adequate object for the Speculative Reason, capable of being in some sense ultimately understood But the Cosmos of Duty is thus really reduced to a Chaos: and the prolonged ef fort of the human intellect to frame a perfect ideal of rational conduct i seen to have been foredoomed to inevitable Gilure.*

A friend recounts how Sidgwick, shortly after having completed the manuscript for The Methods of Ethics, pointed to it and said,“ have long wished and intended to write a work on Ethics Now it is written [ have adhered to a plan I laid out for myself; its first word was to be ‘Ethics? its last word ‘Failure!”” For the second edition of The Methods of Ethics, col- leagues had persuaded Sigdwick to change that last word; but ending the book with “scepticism” rather than with “failure” was as far as he felt pre~ pared to go In a footnote near the end of the book, he adds that he can- not bring himself to postulate a Supreme Being for purposes of practical moral choice so long as he sees no grounds for belief in such a Being as

“a speculative moral truth”; and he cannot even imagine such a state of mind “except as a momentary half-willfal irrationality, committed in a violent access of philosophic despair.”

Such philosophic despair and such temptations to what he considered irrationality were not unknown to Sidgwick himself In March 1887, he notes in his diary that acknowledging the failure of his efforts to obtain evidence of immortality “affects me not as a man but as a moralist"" And looking back to what he had written in 1874, to the effect that “without some datum beyond experience ‘the Cosmos of duty is reduced to a

Chaos?” he asks what he has left to teach, having found no s

Should he recant his conviction and answer his own arguments? ich datum

(Or am I to use my position—and draw my salary—for teaching that Mo rality isa Chaos, from the point of view of Practical Reason; adding cheer fally that, as man is not after alla rational being, there is no real fear that morality won't be kept up somehow.”

‘The essays collected in Practical Ethics, offered first as public lectures start ing the following year, must be read in the light of these doubts Could there be an approach to ethics that did not call for examining its meth ods or foundations? Could there be methods of constructing some form

of Moral Cosmos short of one ordained and supported by a Supreme Being? Could there be ways of debating practical moral choice that would not call for framing “a perfect ideal for rational conduct” as a preliminary?

To explore these questions, Sidgwick chose a new approach, He reached beyond the academy to discuss them with men and women from different professional, educational, and religious backgrounds in the Cam- bridge Ethical Society that he had helped to found The Cambridge so- was modeled in part, as were the ethical societies founded a few years later in London, on the Societies for Ethical Culture recently inaugurated

in America." Members of these societies were to meet periodically for purpose of “promoting, through intelligent discussion the interests of practical morality?" Together, members might consider such questions as when, if ever, public officials might be justified in lying or in breaking promises, whether scientists could legitimately inflict suffering on animals

for research purposes, and when nations might have just cause in going

to war In this way, they might reasonably strive to reach “some results of value for practical guidance and life.”

Most of the essays in the present volume were first presented as ad- dresses to one or another of these societies In the first essay, “The Scope and Limits of the Work of an Ethical Society.” Sidgwick warns his audi ence about the reasons so many debates about practical ethics founder in disputes about vast unresolved theoretical issues The likelihood of failure

is strong, he suggests He offers, as a cautionary example, the fate of a metaphysical society in London to which he had belonged, Its members had come together with high hopes to debate profound topics such as the

meaning of human life, the relation of the finite co the infinite, the ulti~ mate ground of duty, or the essence of virtue; but after much convivial discussion, it had become clear that no joint progress had been made with respect to these topics No one had convinced anyone else and “we all re~ mained exactly as we were.”

If members of the society hoped to fare better and to reach results of practical value, they “should give up altogether the idea of getting to the bottom of things, arriving at agreement on the first principles of duty or the Summum Bonum.""To prevent them from slipping into their a tomed debates over imponderables, Sidgwick urges them to remain, as much as possible, in what he calls the “region of middle axioms?””

Moraliss of all schools have acknowledged that broad agreement in the denails of morality which we actually find both among thoughtful pe sons who profoundly disagree on first principles, and among plain men who do not seriously trouble themselves about first principles Well, my view is that we ought to start with this broad agreement as to the dictates

of duty, and keeping close to it, without trying to penetrate to the ultimace grounds We must remain as far as possible in the “region of middle axioms,” if | may be permitted the technical term

‘The term “middle axioms” was one Sidgwick had adopted from John Stuart Mill, who distinguished “axiomata media” or intermediate princi- ples."on the one hand, from empirical laws resulting from simple obser- vation and, on the other from the highest generalizations." Mill, in turn, had referred to Prancis Bacon, who wrote in Novum Organon of the un- derstanding proceeding “by a true scale and successive steps, without in- termuption or breach, from particulars to the lesser axioms, thence to the intermediate (rising one above the other), and lastly, to the most general.” Sidgwick suggests to his audience that the region of middle axioms might provide a common moral ground for their debates, even though they do not share the most general moral principles or metaphysical premises This common ground should be explored with “as much precision as the sub- Ject admits, not avoiding difficulties, but facing them, so as to get beyond the platitudes of copybook morality to results which may be really of use

in the solution of practical questions."

‘What might debates be like that remained in such a region of middle

axioms? First, participants must agree not to take up perennially disputed

‘metaphysical questions such as those Sidgwick had mentioned in con- nection with the Metaphysical Society, including inquiries into the most general foundations of morality; but to acknowledge, rather, “the broad and general agreement as to particulars of morality which we find among moral persons” (p 7) Sidgwick offers as such particulars the principles of

set aside.” Instead, members of the society should press for greater clarity

in discussing particular cases and practices, work to dispel confusion, and reject spurious reasons for disagreement,

Second, the middle region is one in which the concern must be nei- ther with strictly religious debates nor with strictly secular ones insofar as they would exclude the spiritual concerns that often have religious roots

‘There need be no references to the supernatural nor to a future life, Sidg- wick suggests, as providing rewards for virtuous conduct Rather, there could be broad agreement on a large overlapping region of secular duty that is found, in fact, aso in religious contexts and that can be shared quite independently of revelation The work of the Ethical Society should, Sidewick insisted, be confined to this shared secular middle region, which need in no way therefore be irreligious, nor be used to exclude partici

pants from any one religious backgroun

‘Third, Sidgwick proposes that discussions within the region of middle axioms should leave aside topics that require a “detailed study of social facts." Not that such facts should be excluded, he adds, but the main focus of the society should be on mid-level practical principles and on their practical application So, for example, instead of considering par- ticular moral choices for a lawyer or a public servant, members might take

up possible exceptions to common moral ideals that professionals advo- cate for their own group For instance, all would agree that it is prima facie wrong for them to lie or to break promises But when, if ac all, might lawyers nevertheless legitimately urge false or misleading considerations

for their clients? Or a government repudiate an international treaty?

A note appended at the end of the first essay bespeaks the difficulties

of remaining within the limits that Sidgwick had proposed to the Cam- bridge Ethical Society They had been found “too narrow by the leading spirits of the London Ethical Society.” But Sidgwick would not give up without a struggle In 1893, when he gave his presidential address to the latter group—the second essay in this book—it had been in existence for several years; and it ran the risk, so one senses in his essay, of going the

‘way of the metaphysical society—of losing itself in congenial but ineffec~ tual exchanges on the “ultimate grounds.”

‘This second essay has to be read as a profoundly personal declaration

on Sidgwick’s part, suggesting how he thought the London Ethica

cty might be able to right its course without abandoning its langer aspi- rations Sidgwick has given anxious thought, he admits, to what his ducy

as president might be: if he is honest in delineating the difficulties facing any group having set for itself the goals of the present society, will he not repel some members from the study it aims to promote? Yet the duty of his position as the society's president is clear He has to help members see the seriousness of the obstacles they confront in reconciling their declared aims on the basis of their declared principles

The society’ members had stated as their goal not only the practical aim appropriate for such a group, “to assist in individual and social efforts after right living” (p 16), but also one that might lead them far afield and

at times conflict with the first: “to free the current ideal of what is right from all that is merely traditional and self-contradictory, and thus to widen and perfect it” (p 19) Still further fom strietly practical purposes, they aimed “to assist in constructing as Theory or Science of Right, which, starting with the reality and validity of moral distinctions, shall explain their mental and social origin, and connect them in a logical system of thought” (p 19)

Itis no wonder that the effort to assist in constructing such a theory should give Sidgwick pause Thinkers have endeavored to do so since time immemorial, and he himself had spent much of his lif working for the same end, But practical ethics, if it is to “assist in individual and social ef forts after right living,” must proceed from a basis of more general agree~ ment than can be had on the theoretical questions the group seeks to an~ swer, Why not address even the theoretical questions from the middle ground of principles that can be shared by most persons? There is much

more agreement on what a good life is, he points out, than on why it is good or on what its ultimate ends might be, Circumstances will inevitably change as will understandings of obligations relating to gender, family, and social class But life, he concludes, “is essentially change, and the good life must be essentially life; it is enough if it contain unchanged amid the change that aspiration after the best life which is itself a chief source and spring of change” (p 30)

‘What role should philosophers play in the process of elucidating both theory and practice when it comes to such a good life? Sidgwick explains why they neither can nor ought to undertake such an inquiry alone The reasons he gives are hard won, though he thought earlier that philoso- phers had a more central role than he now believes fruitful One detects none of the youthful arrogance of his Methods of Ethics, with its distinc- tions between “the enlightened few” and “the vulgar,” and its endorse~ ment of special moral exemptions for “a class of persons defined by ex- ceptional qualities of intellect, temperament, and character.” Instead, Sidgwick sets forth mutual advantages for philosophers and non-philoso- phers in making common cause in its service While the discussion of eth~ ical issues can benefit from the clarification and analysis that philosophers bring, they need, in turn, to draw on the knowledge of facts and the ex- perience of persons “in the thick and heat of the struggle

all stations and ranks, in the churches and outside the churches” (p 22)

‘The third and fourth essays of the book, entitled “Public Morality.” and

“The Morality of Strife.’ are of great interest for contemporary discussions

of public and private ethics and of the morality of war and peace.” Is there

a distinction, Sidgwick asks in “Public Morality” between public and pri vate morality? It would surely be a deep paradox, he argues, if lawyers and doctors and other professionals saw fit to override the most common moral precepts of justice, veracity, and good faith when it suited them, and that of “abstinence from aggression on person or property” that he some- times cites as belonging to the same set of basic precepts But whereas most might agree about how these principles should hold for most profession- als, the same is not the case when it comes to government morality Clearly, public officials are not holding themselves to such rules in prac- tice Sometimes their justification for breaches are “esoteric”—not de-

He considers the nineteenth-century advocates of Machiavellian views and points out that, as a utilitarian, itis not the view that the ends justify the means to which he objects, but such claims when they are made on

the part of regional or sectarian rather than common human ends A vio~ lation of rules of mutual behavior, he concludes,"so far as itis merely jus- tified by its conduciveness to the sectional interest of a particular group of human beings, must receive unhesitating and unsparing censure” (p 46)

In “The Morality of Strife:” Sidgwick presses these issues in the con~ text of war—the form of strife which “causes the most intense and pro- found moral aversion and perplexity to the modern mind” (p 49) He considers reasons for going to war, compares views regarding just wars, al-

ternative ways of resolving conflict such as arbitration, in ways that take

on new meaning in the light of the century of warfare since his book ap- peared, Some of his observations resonate with understandable inability

to foresee the wars and genocides that our own century would bring, as well as ignorance of massive human rights abuses perpetrated, even as he wrote, at home and abroad As a result, Sidgwick could maintain that there was steady improvement in “a spirit of humanity”; and that, “considering the aims of war, and the deadly violence inevitable in its methods, I think that civilized humanity, at the end of the nineteenth century, may look with some complacency on the solid amount of improvement achieved” (p.58)

The same hopefillness about the future is evident in the eighth essay,

“The Pursuit of Culture,” a lecture delivered in 1897 Sidewick opens by stressing the new role for practical ethics at the close of a century during which the sciences have brought unparalleled enlargement of “our con- ception of the prospective greatness of human life to be lived on this earth." No more remarkable change has ever taken place in human thought: che life of the human race “now spreads out before our imagina- tion as all but infinite in its probably duration and its possibilities of de- velopment” (p 114) As a consequence, the problem of how to make human life on earth better has become the dominant problem for mo- rality;a task which will be facilitated, Sidgwick declares, by the rejection

of narrow individualism and “the enlarged conception of social and po- litical duty which is now prevalent.”

A century after Sidgwick’s lecture, the survival of the human race has

itself been placed in question, along with that of innumerable other

species If Sidgwick could have foreseen the technological and ideologi- cal developments that have brought about these risks, not perceived at his time, he might well insist that this only makes it more important to focus

on what he saw as the “dominant problem for morality.” only to do so in awareness of all the ways in which simplistic efforts to do so can go astray Contemporary readers may find it odd, even disproportionate, that Sidgwick should devote two of his nine essays in a volume entitled Prac tical Fthics to the moral issues raised by temptations to hypocrisy and de- ceit among the clergy In “The Ethics of Religious Conformity” and

“Clerical Veracity,” Sidgwick returns to discuss the question of veracity that he had already considered in “Public Morality” and earlier in The Methods of Ethics—but with focus this time on the clergy Might they have special reasons to engage in “pious fraud,” for the sake of the greater good that they might thereby be able to bring about in their congregations? Sidgwick takes up, in this context, conflicts within the Church of England about whether it could be permissible for a clergyman to profess every Sunday a belief in the Apostle’s Creed that he did not in fit entertain; he concludes that on both moral and religious grounds, actual falsehoods must be ruled out,

In examining what he took to be the hypocrisy surrounding such

declarations, and concluding, that they represented a serious form of de- ceit, Sidgwick could draw on personal experience in the late 1860s As a young fellow and assistant tutor at Trinity, he had gradually gone from or- thodoxy with respect to Church of England teachings to increasingly greater religious doubts He had finally concluded that he could not sub- scribe to some of the dogmas embodied in the articles of the Apostle’s

Cr

ford to lose his academic position, however, and knew that by refusing the sd that academics were enjoined to affirm each year He could ill af- religious test he would distress many in his family, especially his mother Finally, he chose to speak out and to submit a proposal to abolish religious tests for fellows These tests, which included profession of belief in the Apostle’s Creed, made it impossible for agnostics, dissenters, Catholics, and others to hold fellowships The proposal was turned down, and Sidgwick resigned his fellowship in June 1868 Other Trinity Fellows followed his example Trinity, however, rehired him as a lecturer and abolished the re- ligious tests altogether the next year In 1871, they were eliminated at all universities by an Act of Parliament.” A historian of the period comments

on Sidgwicks choice: “lt was the purely voluntary act of a high-minded and very scrupulous man who thought no sacrifice too great on behalf of honesty It is impossible to exaggetate the moral splendor of his action."” Given Sidgwick’s own willingness to take great risks for the sake of personal honesty and his stance with respect to “pious fraud,” it is the more striking that he should be considerably more cavalier with respect

to lies by persons in other walks of life—by doctors to their patients or

by homeowners to burglars, or by spies and police agents In The Methods

of Ethics, likewise, he had jumbled together untruths “told to children, or madmen, or invalids, or by advocates or to enemies or robbers” as not clearly wrong in the eyes of Common Sense, based on unspecified “utili- tarian reasonings.”® The reasons he offers in Practical Ethies are still utili~ tarian, still uncharacteristically hasty and unclear, with no convincing explanation why some lies should be accepted on utilitarian grounds and not lies by the clergy

‘Throughout these two essays, as in the others, Sidgwick nevertheless proceeds with a calm reasonableness and quick wit that invite further de- bate and reflection, Just as his manner of sorting out moral problems is Known to have had that effect among his cont

nporaries, so it can con tribute to our own debates about the many questions of practical ethics that he took up and the numerous new issues that have arisen since

‘Were he to take part in tody’s debates, he would doubtless pay special attention to the vast scale, both of opportunities and of problems, that the century since he published his book has brought to light He might well wish to reiterate his belief, stated in “The Pursuit of Culture,” that the problem of how to make human life on earth better has become the dominant one for morality, even as he might express greater doubts about his carlier confidence in the prevalence of an enlarged conception of so- cial and political duty, especially in the light of the developments he did not foresee: the extraordinary growth in our century of the world’s pop-

ulation, especially in the poorest societies; the humanly inflicted threats to the Earth’s environment; and the unprecedented risks posed by the pro- liferation of nuclear weapons and other means of mass destruction

‘As we consider these problems, along with the many ethical issues in personal and public life that confront individuals and societies today as they did in his time, we have much to gain by exploring the shared moral precepts that he considered central, and by using them as common ground

within “the region of middle axioms” from which to launch further de bates, We can benefit, too, from drawing on Sidgwick’s clear-headed, searching approach to moral inquiry, both practical and theoretical It was summed up, after his death, by one who knew him well:“He offered the highest type of a seeker after truth, more anxious to understand an op- ponent’s argument than to refute him; watchfal lest any element in a dis- cussion should be left unnoticed; patient, reverent, ready to the last to wel

come light from any quarter."

Notes

1 Henry Sidgwick, The Prinples of Political Ezonomy (London: Macmillan &

Co, 1883); The Elements of Politi (London: Macmillan & Co, 1891); for a complete bibliography, see Jerome Schneewind, Sidgwick’s Ethics and Victorian Moral Philoso- phy (Oxford: Oxford University Press 977)

2 Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethia, 1st ed, (London: Macmillan & Co, 1874) For an excellent treatment of this work in its historical context, see Jerome

B Schneewind, Sidgwice’s Eshics and Victorian Moral Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 1977)

ako edited Henry Sidgwick:A Memoir, with Archur Sidgwick (London: Macmillan, 1906); The Intemational Criss tw ls Ethical and Psychological Aspects (London: H, Mil- ford, 1915); nd Phantasms ofthe Living (London: K, Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1918)

5 Even books with the very same title of Prtical Ethic, published after Sidg- wick’, do not refer to it See the works with this tile by Herbert Samuels (Lon dom Butterworth Ltd, 1935): Peter Singer (Cambridge University Press, 1970; and ed., 1993): Gordon Shea (New York: American Management Association Publications, 1988)

6 Practical Ethics was reissued once in 1909.The book is not mentioned at all

187) Eleanor Sidgwick

in the issue of The Monist devoted to Sidgwick (Vol §8, 1974) It is mentioned in

2 note to the Introduction in Bart Schultz, ed., Essays ow Henry Sidguik (C: bridge: Cambridge University Press, 192); and in the bibliography of Sidgwick’s works in Sehneewind, Sidewick’ Eihie,

7 Apart fiom a few footnotes, the authors mention the book only once in the

text co indicate that Sidgwick had sent a copy to Bishop Creighton They quote

a passage from Creighton’ letter concerning the book, and Sidgwick’s letter in te sponse, pp 560-70

8 Henry Sidpwick, Methods of Ethics, 1st ed., pp 472-73 Quoted in Frank Miller Turner, Betoven Science and Religion: The Reaction to Scientific Naturalis in Late Viaorian England (New Haver: Yale University Press, 1974) p47

9 EH Hayward, quoting Oscar Browning, cited in Bart Schultz, “Inte- duction," in Schulte, ed., Essays on Henry Sidgwiek, p 4

to, Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, p $07

xí, Henry Sidgwick, diary, March 16, 1887, in Henry Sidewick; A Memoir

pp 471-72 Earlier, on January 28, 1887, Sidpwick mentions that when he wrote his Methods of Fihis, he had been “inclined to hold, with Kant, that we must pos- tila the continued existence of the soul in order to effect that harmony of duty

‘with Happiness which seemed to me indispensable to rational moral ife” IEnow hhe decides the search is a failure, can he still make such a postulate? And if not, have [ any ethical system at all?” (p 467)

ta bid, p 472

15 See I D MacKillop, The British Ethical Societies (Cambridge University Press, 1086); and G Spiller, The Ethical Movement in Great Britain (London: printed for the author at the Farleigh Press, 1934)

“As mankind are much mon

ciples illa et media axiomata, as Bacon says—than in their first principles”

‘Bentham” in Marshall Cohen, ed., The Philesophy of Joloe Stuart Mill, New York Modern Library, p 47)

20 Francis Bacon, Novum Organon, 1, 104

21 Sidgwick, Practical Ethics, p 7

3a Ibid, pp.ar

23 Ibid, p

24 Ibid, p 1

25, Sidgwick, Methods of Fihics, pp 490, 489

26, These essays were reprinted in 1918 in a volume edited by Viscount James

Bryce under the title National and Intemational Right and Wrong: Tivo Essays

27, Sidgwick, Practical Ethics, p 113

28, See the accounts in Sidgwick and Sidgwick, Henry Sidwick, Ch II, Schneewind, Sidgwick’ Ethic, pp 21-40, and in Q D, Leavis, “Henry Sidgwick’s Cambridge,

Scrutiny, Vol XV, No 1, December 1947, pp 2-11

29 D.A Winstanley, Later Victorian Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1947),

30 Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, p 355

31 Dr Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Dec 1900, quoted in A.and E, Sidgwick, Henry Sidgwick, A Memoir, p 559

IE greater part of the present volume consists of addresses delivered before one or other of the Ethical Societies that were founded some ten years ago in London and Cambridge These societies were partly—

“Societies for Ethical Culture”

though not entirely—modelled on t

which had been started in America a few years before: they aimed at meeting a need which was believed to be widely felt for the intelligent study of moral questions with a view to elevate and purify social life At the first meeting of the Cambridge Ethical Society, in May, 1888, I en- deavoured, in an address which I have placed first in this volume, to set forth my conception of the work that the Society might profitably un

I Society, of which I was at the time President, [attempted a somewhat faller analysis

dertake Four years later, at a meeting of the London Ethi

of the aims and methods of such an association This stands second in the volume In three other addresses, delivered before one or other of these societies, | endeavoured to apply my general conception to particular top- ics of interest and difficulty—the “Morality of Strife.” the “Ethics of Con- formity” and “Luxury’” These stand respectively fourth, fifth, and seventh

ăn the volume, These addresses, except the first, have already appeared in the Intemational Journal of Ethics

Along with these addresses I have included four papers, having, either

in whole or in part, similarly practical aims.'Two of these, on “Public Mo~ rality” and “Clerical "and part of a third, on the “Pursuit of Cul- ture,” are published here for the first time I have placed each of the three either before or after the address that appeared most cognate in subject: The connection is closest in the case of the paper on “Clerical Veracity”; which is, in fact, a fuller exposition—called forth by controversy—of my views on a portion of the subject of the address that precedes it The last paper in the volume—on “Unreasonable Action” I have not included

máci

without some hesitation, as it was written primarily from a psychological rather than a practical point of view: but on the whole it appeared to me

to have sufficient ethical interest to justify its inclusion

November 1897

1, The Score and Limits of the Work of an Ethical Society _3

The Aims and Methods of an Ethical Society _15

ut_Public Morality ạt

ww The Morality of Strife 47

v._The Bthics of Religious Conformity _6

vi Clerical Veracity 79

vu._Luxury _99

văn, The Pursuit of Culture 11

1x, Unreasonable Action 12

THE SCOPE AND LIMITS OF THE WORK

OF AN ETHICAL SOCIETY

HAVE to ask you to regard this as a preliminary meeting of the newly- formed Ethical Society, which will commence its ordinary meetings in the Michaelmas Term This preliminary meeting is held with the view of arriving by frank discussion at a more full and clear notion of the aims and methods of such a society than could conveniently be given in the printed definition of its objects that has been circulated

In onder to set an example of frankness, I will begin by saying that I

am not myself at all sanguine as to the permanent success of such a soci ety in realizing what I understand to be the design of its founders, e.,t0 promote through discussion the interests of practical morality 1 think that failure in such an undertaking is more probable than x

prognostication should be too depressing, I hasten to add that while per- iccess: but, est this

manent success in realizing what we aim at would be a result as valuable

as it would be remarkable, failure would be a very small evil; indeed, it

‘An address delivered atthe preliminary mecting of the Cambridge Ethical Society, Fri day, May 18, 1885,

would not necessaril

be an evil at all, Even supposing that we become convinced in the course of two or three years that we are not going to attain the end that we have in view by the method which we now pro- pose to use, we might still feel—I have good hope that we shall feel-— that our discussions, so far as they will have gone, will have been interesting and, in their way, profitable; though recognizing that the time has come for the Ethical Society to cease, we may still feel glad that it has existed, and that we have belonged to it

‘This cheerfully pessimistic view—if I may so describe itis partly founded on an experience which I will briefly narrate

Many years ago I became a member ofa Metaphysical Society in Lon don; that was its name, although it dealt with ethical questions no less than those called metaphysical in a narrow sense It included many recognized representatives of different schools of thought, who met animated, [am sure, by a sincere desire to pursue truth by the method of discussion; and sought by frank explanation of their diverse positions and frank statement

of mutual objections, to come, if possible, to some residuum of agreement

on the great questions that concern man as a rational being—the mean- ing of human life, the relation of the individual to the universe, of the fix nite to the infinite, the ultimate ground of duty and essence of virtue, Well, for a little while the Society seemed to flourish amazingly; it was joined by men eminent in various departments of practical life—states- men, lawyers, journalists, bishops and archbishops of the Anglican and of the Roman persuasion: and the discussions went on, monthly or there- abouts, among the members of this heterogeneous group, without any friction or awkwardness, in the most fiank and amicable way The social

And some of us felt that if the discussions went on, the \d no one being in the least convinced by any on

ment of divergent opinions, the reiterated ineffective apy

mon reason which we all assumed to exist, but which nowhere s

to emerge into actuality, might become wearisome and wasteful of time

‘Thus the Metaphysical Society came to an end; but we were glad—at least, [ certainly was glad—that we had belonged to it We had not been

convinced by each other, but we had learnt to understand each other bet- ter, and to sympathize, in a certain sense, with opposing lines of thought, even though we were unable to follow them with assent

T have not, however, brought in this comparison merely to show why Tam not afiaid of failure; I have brought it in partly to introduce one counsel that I shall give to the Ethical Society with the view of escaping, failure, viz., that it should be as much as possible unlike in its aims to the Metaphysical Society to which I have referred [ think we should give up altogether the idea of getting to the bottom of things, arriving at agree ment on the first principles of duty or the Summum Bonum If our dis- cussions persist in taking that line, I can hardly doubt that we shall imi- tate the example of failure that I have just set before you; we shall not convince each other, and after a little while each of us, like the Irish ju- ryman, will get red of arguing with so many other obstinately unrea- sonable persons in the Metaphysical Society we could not avoid this; a metaphysician who does not try to get to the bottom of things is, as Kant would say, an “Unding”: he has no raison d’étre But with our Ethical So- ciety the case is different; the aim of such an Ethical Society, in the Aris- totelian phrase, is not knowledge but action: and with this practical ob- Ject it is not equally necessary that we should get to the bottom of things

It would be presumptuous to suppose that in such a Society as this, in- cluding, as we hope, many members whose intellectual habits as well as their aims are practical rather than speculative, we can settle the old con- troversies of the schools on ethical first principles; but it may be possible

by steering clear of these controversies to reach some results of value for practical guidance and life But how exactly are we to do this?

‘The question may be put in a more general form, in which it has a

wider and more permanent interest than we can presume to claim for the special purpose for which we are met here tonight What, we may ask, are the proper lines and limits of ethical discussion, having a distinctly practical aim, and carried on among a miscellaneous group of educated persons, who do not belong exclusively to any one religious sect or philo~ sophical school, and possibly may not have gone through any systematic study of philosophy? The answer that I am about to give to this question must not be taken as in any way official, nor do I intend it to be in any way cut and dried { should like to be free to adopt a materially different view as the result of further experience and interchange of opinions But

at present the matter presents itself to me in this light Moralists of all schools have acknowledged—and usually emphasized, each from his own point of view—that broad agreement in the details of morality which we actually find both among thoughtful persons who profoundly disagree on first principles, and among plain men who do not seriously trouble them- selves about first principles, Well, my view is that we ought to start with this broad agreement as to the dictates of duty, and keeping close to it, without trying to penetrate to the ultimate grounds, the first principles

on which duty may be constructed as a rational system, to make this gen= eral agreement somewhat more explicit and clear chan it is in ordinary thought I want to advance one or ewo degrees in the direction of sys- tematizing morality without hoping or attempting to go the whole way: and in the clearer apprehension of our common morality thus gained to eliminate or reduce the elements of confusion, of practical doubt and dis~ agreement, which, at the present day at leat, are lable to perplex even the plainest of plain men, I sometimes wonder whether the great Bishop But- Jer, who lays so much emphasis on the clearness and certainty of the dic tates of a plain man’s conscience—I wonder whether this generally cau tious thinker would use quite the same language if he lived now It certainly seems to me that the practical perplexities of the plain man have

‘materially increased in the century and a half that have elapsed since the famous sermons to which I refer were preached Take, eg., the case of compassion The plain man of Butler's time knew that when he heard the cry of distress he ought to put his hand in his pocket and relieve it; but now he has learnt from newspapers and magazines that indiscriminate almsgiving aggravates in the long run the evils that it attempts to cure; and, therefore now, when he heats the cry of woe, itis apt to stir in his mind a disagreeable doubt and conffict, instead of the old simple impulse Well, there is a solution to this perplexity, on which thinkers of the most different schools and sects would probably agree: that tue charity de- mands of us money, but also something more than money: personal ser vice, sacrifice of time and thought, and—after all—a patient endurance of

a partially unsatisfactory result, acquiescence in minimizing evils that we cannot cure,

But this answer, though it does not raise any of the fundamental ques- tions disputed in the schools, is yet not altogether trite and obvious; to glve it im a fully satisfactory form needs careful thinking over, careful de~

velopment and explanation Thus this case may serve to illustrate my view

of the general function of ethical debate, carried on by such a society as ours: to bring into a more clear and consistent form the broad and gen- eral agreement as to the particulars of morality which we find among,

‘moral persons, making explicit the general conceptions of the good and evil in human life, of the normal relation of a man to his fellows, which

this agreement implies We should do this not vaguely, but aiming cau- tiously at as much precision as the subject admits, not avoiding difficul- ties, but facing them, so as to get beyond the platitudes of copybook mo- rality to results which may be really of use in the solution of practical questions; and yet not endeavouring to penetrate to ultimate principles,

‘on which—as I have said—we can handly hope to come to rational agree-

‘ment in the present state of philosophical thought We must remain as far

as possible in the “region of middle axioms”—if I may be allowed the technical term

But how shall we mark off this region of discussion, in which we look for middle axioms, from the region in which first principles are sought? Well, I shall not try to do this with any definiteness, for if I did I should inevitably pass over into the region that Ï am trying to avoid; I should il- lustrate the old Greek argument to prove the necessity of philosophizing

“We must philosophize, for either we ought to philosophize, or, if we ought not, we must philosophize in order to demonstrate that we ought not to philosophize.” So if| tried to make definite our general conception

of the kind of topics we ought to avoid, I should be insensibly drawn into

a full discussion of these topics I shall, therefore, leave the line vague, and content myself with describing some of the questions that lie beyond it

‘To begin, there is all the discussion as to the nature, origin and devel- opment of moral ideas and sentiments, which—in recent times espe~ cially has absorbed so large a part of the attention of moralists; when we want them to tell us what morality is, they are apt to slide off into enter- taining but irrelevant speculations as to how, in pre-historic times, or in the obscurity of the infant’s consciousness, it came to be I think that, for our present purposes, we must keep clear of all this; we must say, with the German poet, “Wir, wir leben und der lebende hat Recht.” We must make as workable a system as we can of our own morality, taking it

as we find it, with an inevitable element of imperfection and error which

I hope posterity will correct and supplement, just as we have corrected

ncies in the morality of pre-

assume—and I suppose we may assume this of persons joining an Ethical Society

‘mon moral ideal, and that they think it will help them to get their con- ception of it clearer

And this leads me to another topic, more difficult to excise, but which yet I should like to omit When we try to get the conception of rational conduct clear we come upon the “double nature of Good,” which, as Bacon tells us, is “formed in everything”; we are met with the profound difficulty of harmonizing the good of the individual with the good of the larger whole of which he is a part or member In my professional treat ment of ethics I have concerned myself much with this question —con- sidering it to be the gravest formal defect of the Utilitarianism of Mill and Bentham, under whose influence my own view was formed, that it treats this problem so inadequately But I do not want to introduce it into the discussions of our Society; I should prefer to assume—what I think we are all prepared to assume—that each of us wants to do what is best for the larger whole of which he is a part, and that it is not our business to supply him with egoistic reasons for doing it In saying thi

pute his claim to be supplied with such reasons by any moralist profess- ing to construct a complete ethical system When J.S Mill says, in the per- oration of a powerful address,“ do not attempt to stimulate you with the prospect of direct rewards, either earthly or heavenly; the less we think about being rewarded in either way the better for us." I think itis a hard saying, too hard for human nature The demand that happiness shall be connected with virtme cannot be finally quelled in this way; but for the purposes of our Society I am ready to adopt, and should prefer to adopt, Mill’s position

And this leads me naturally to a point of very practical moment—the relation of our Society to the Christian Churches, For one great funetion

is chat they have a desire of a certain force to realize their com-

I do not dis-

of the religious teaching of the Churches—in all ages—has been the sup- ply of extracmundane motives stimulating men to the performance of duty, Such motives have been both of higher and lower kinds, appealing, respectively to different elements of our nature—fears of hell-fire and outer darkness, of wailing and gnashing of teeth, for the brutal and selfish element in us, that can hardly be kept down without these coarse re- straints; while to our higher part it has been shown how heavenly love in saints has fused into one the double nature of good; how—like earthly Jove in its moments of intensity—it has “Touched the chord of self that trembling passed in music out of sight” Well, in all this—if my view be adopted—the Ethical Society will make no attempt to compete with the Churches We shall contemplate the relation of virtue to the happiness of the virtuous agent, as we believe it actually to be in the present world, and not refer to any future world in which we may hope for compensation for the apparent injustices of the present And in thus limiting ourselves

to mundane motives we shall, { hope, keep a middle path between opti-

mism and pessimism That is, we shall not profess to prove that the appar- ent sacrifices of self-interest which duty imposes are never in the long run real sacrifices; nor, on the other hand, shall we ignore or underrate the noble and refined satisfactions which experience shows to attend the resolute choice of virtue in spite of all such sacrifices—

“The stubborn thisles bursting Into lossy purples, which outredden All voluptuous garden-roses.”

te may, however, be said that itis not merely the fanetion of Churches

to supply motives for the performance of duty, but also to teach what duty is, and that here their work must inevitably coincide—and perhaps clash—with that undertaken by an Ethical Society My answer would be that there is at least a large region of secular duty in which thoughtful Christians commonly recognize that an ideal of conduct can be, and ought to be, worked out by the light of reason independently of revela~ tion; and I should recommend our Society to confine its attention to this, secular region, Here no doubt some of us may pursue the quest of moral truth by study or discussion in a non-religious spirit, others in a religious spirit; but I conceive that we have room for both As a Society, I conceive

that our attitude ought to be at once unexclusive as regards the non~ religious, and unaggressive as regards all forms of Christian creed

In saying this, I keep in view the difficulty chat many feel in separat- ing at all the ideas of morality and religion, and I have no wish to sharpen the distinction Indeed, I myself can hardly conceive a working Ethical Society of which the aim would not include in essentials the apostle’s definition of the pure service of religion We might characterize it as the aim of being in the world and yet not of it, working strenuously for the improvement of mundane affairs, and yet keeping ourselves, as the apos-

inspotted of the world” —that is, in modern phrase, keeping clear

of the compromises with sondid interests and vulgar ambitions which the

He says,

practical standards of al classes and sections of society are too apt to admit

OF such compromises I will say a word presently: my point now is that the maintenance of an ideal in this s se unworldly must be the concern

of any Ethical Society worthy of the name, nor do I see why those who habitually contemplate this ideal from a religious point of view should be unable to co-operate with those who habitually contemplate it from as purely ethical point of view I do not say that there are no difficulties in suich co-operation; but [ am sure that we all bring with us a sincere de~ sire to minimize these difficulties, and if s0,1 do not see why they should not be avoided or overcome

‘To sum up: the region in which we are to move I conceive as, philo- sophically, a middle region, the place of intermediate ethical generaliza- tions which we are content to conceive in a rough and approximate way, avoiding fundamental controversies as far as we can; while from a religious point of view’ it is a secular but not therefore irreligious region, in which wwe pursue merely mundane ends, but yet not in a worldly spirit

Bat it remains to define more clearly its relation to particular practical problems In the present age it is impossible that any group of educated persons, spontaneously constituted by their common interest in practical ethics, should not have their attention prominently drawn to the numer- ous schemes of social improvement on which philanthropic effort is being expended, In this way we may be easily led in our ethical discussions to debate one after another such practical questions as, “Shall we work for State-aided emigration, or promote recreative education, or try to put down sweating? Shall we spend our money in providing open spaces for the poor, or our leisure on a Charity Organi ?” Now I

sion Committ

have no doubt myself that persons of education, especially if they have comparative wealth and leisure, ought to interest themselves in some or all of these things; and I think it belongs to us in Cambridge, not only to diffuse a general conviction of the importance of this kind of work, but abo to encourage a searching examination of the grounds on which par ticular schemes are urged on the public attention, But in this examination

a detailed study of social facts necessarily comes in along with the study

of principles, and—though I have no wish to draw a hard and fase line—

J should be disposed to regard this study of facts as lying in the main be- yond the province of our Society, whose attention should be rather con- centrated on principles I should propose to leave it to some economic or philanthropic association to examine how far an alleged social want ex- ists, and how urgent it is, and by what particular methods it may best be satisfied or removed What we have rather to consider is how far the eleemosynary or philanthropic intervention of private outsiders in such ccases is in accordance with a sound general view of the relation of the in- dividual to his society Itis with the general question, “What social classes

hh other,” that we are primarily concerned, though in trying

to find the right answer to this question we may obtain useful instruc- tion from a consideration of the particular fields of work to which I have referred

is not the only problem causing practical perplexities that such discussions

as ours might reduce There are many other such problems in our com- plicated modern life—even omitting those obviously unfit for public oral discussion, One class of them which specially interests me is presented by the divergence of the current practical standards of particular sections

of the community, on certain points, from the common moral ideal which the community as a whole still maintains We feel that such divergences are to a great extent an evil, the worldliness which we have to avoid; but yet we think them in some degree legitimate, and the difficulty lies in drawing the line, Any careful discussion of such deflections must lead to what bears the unpopular name of Casuistry I think, however, that the odium which in the seventeenth century overwhelmed the systematic dis- cussion by theologians of difficult and doubtful cases of morals—though undeniably in part deserved—went to an unreasonable length, and ob-

scured the real importance of the study against which it was directed

‘There is no doubt that individuals are strongly tempted to have recourse

to casuistry in order to find excuses for relaxing in their own favour the restraints of moral rules which they find inconvenient; and hence 4 casu= ist has come to be regarded with suspicion as a moralist who aims at pro viding his clients with the most plausible excuses available for this pur pose But though certain casuists have been reasonably suspected of this misapplication of their knowledge and ingenuity, the proper task of cast istry has always been quite different; the question with which it has prop erly been concerned is how far, in the particular circumstances of certain classes of persons, the common good demands a special interpretation or modification of some generally accepted moral rule This, at any rate, is the kind of casuistical problem that I have now in view: and | think that any morality that refuses to deal with such problems must confess itself inadequate for the practical guidance of men engaged in the business of the world; since modifications of morality to meet the special needs of special classes ate continually claimed, and more or less admitted by seri- ous and well-meanin

persons Thus it is widely held that barristers must

be allowed to urge persuasively for their clients considerations that they know to be false or misleading; that a clergyman may be a most virtuous

‘man without exactly believing the creeds he says or the articles hi

that a physiologist mu

general in war must be allowed to use spies and at the same time to hang the spies of the conflicting general I do not say that most educated per sons would accept broadly all these relaxations, but that they would at least admit some of them more or less Especially in the action of states or gov= ernments as such is this kind of divergence admitted, though vaguely and rather reluctantly When Pope asked—using the names of two noted criminals:

be allowed to torture innocent animals; that a

Is it for Bond or Peter, paltry things

“To pay their debrs or kep the faith Tike kings?

the epigram was undeniably deserved: still we do not commonly think that governments are bound to keep their faith quite like private indi- viduals; we do not think that repudiating a treaty between nation and na~ tion is quite like breaking a promise between man and man On all these

and similar points I think it would be of real practical utility if discussion could help us to clearer views For there isa serious danger that when the need of such relaxations is once admitted they may be carried too far; that, in the esoteric morality of any particular profession or trade, ordi~ nary morality will be put aside altogether on certain particular questions,

as the opinion of ignorant outsiders; and no result could be more un- favourable than this to the promotion of ethical interests,

So far I have been speaking of particular and limited conflicts between what may be called sectional morality and general morality But there are departments of society and life of which the relation to ethics is perplex- ing in a more broad and general way, just because of the elevated and ideal character of their aims—I mean art and science."The practical max-

ims of some classes of artists and scientific men are liable to collide with

common morality in the manner just mentioned-

or novelists may deliberately disregard the claims of sexual purity:

is not of these limited conflicts that I now wish to speak, but of the per- plexity one finds in fixing the general relation of the ends of Are and Sci ence to moral ends Perhaps it will be impossible to deal with this wich-

ig certain painters

‘but it

out falling into the metaphysical controversies that I have abjured; but the problem often presents itself to me entirely apare from the questions of the schools When I surrender myself to the pursuit of truth or the im pressions of art, I find myself in either case in a world absorbing and sac: isfying to my highest nature, in which, nevertheless, morality seems to occupy a very subordinate place, and in which—for the more effective re~ alization of the aesthetic or scientific ideal—it seems necessary that mio- rality should be thus subordinated The difficulty seems to be greater in the case of the aesthetic ideal, because the emotional conflict is greater The lover of truth has to examine with neutral curiosity the bad and the good in this mixed world, in order to penetrate its laws; but he need not sympathize with the bad or in any way like its existence But this is harder for the lover of beauty: since evi

contrasts and combinations that give him the delight of beauty: If, as

even moral evil—is an element in the

Renan says, such a career as Cesar Borgia’ is “beautifil as a tempest or an abyss." itis difficult for a lover of beauty not to rejoice that there was a sar Borgia One may even say that in proportion as the sentiment of beauty becomes absorbing and quasi-religious, this divergence from mor- ality is liable to become more marked: because what is bad in a pic~

turesque and exciting way comes to be more and more felt as discord art fully harmonized in the music that all things make to God

Well, is this feeling in any degree legitimate? and if so, how is it to be reconciled with our moral aspirations? I do not expect to attain a single cogently-reasoned answer, which all must accept, to either of these ques tions They will probably always be somewhat differently answered by dif- ferent sets and schools of thoughtful persons But I think they may illus trate the kind of questions on which we may hope to clear up our ideas and reduce the extent of our mutual disagreement by frank and sympa- thetic discussion

[The limits above suggested were thought to be too narrow by the leading spirits of the London Bthical Society Accordingly, as the reader will see, in the next address-—delivered as President of the latter body—I ried to adapt my general view of the nature of the work that such a so~ ciety might profitably undertake to a wider conception of its scope]

THE AIMS AND METHODS OF

AN ETHICAL SOCIETY

'N taking this opportunity, which your committee has given me, of ad- dressing the London Ethical Society, in the honourable but gravely re- sponsible position of their president, I have thought that 1 could best ful- fil the duties of my station by laying before you one or two difficulties which have occurred to my mind, in thinking how we are to realize the declared aims of our Society on the basis of its declared principles | hope, indeed, not merely to put forward difficulties, but to offer at least a par- tial solution of them; but I am conscious that itis easier to raise questions than (0 settle them, and that there is a danger lest the effect of my remarks

‘may be to repel some minds fiom the study which we are combined to promote Still, after anxious thought, I have determined to face this dan- ger For [ do not think we ought to conceal from ourselves that the task wwe have proposed to our Society is one of which the complete accom- plishment is likely to be very difficult, Indeed, were it otherwise, it would hardly have been left for us to accomplish

An addres defivered wo te London Ethical Society on AI

the Inemational Journal of Ethics, October, 1893, under the dt il 33, 1893, and published ‘My Station and its Duties” in

1